Saturday, July 30, 2011

Caribbean Airlines 737 With 163 Aboard Breaks in 2 on Landing in Guyana; No Deaths Reported

A Caribbean Airlines 737-800 with 163 on board crashed and broke in half on landing in Guyana, injuring some people. No deaths were reported, according to the AP (which gets the number of people on board wrong).

The plane, which departed from Kennedy Airport in New York at 6:42 p.m. last night and had a connection in Trinidad, overshot the runway on landing at Cheddi Jagan airport in Guyana.

Caribbean Airlines issued this statement, in which it inexcusably refers to the crash as "an incident:"

"Port-of-Spain, 30 July 2011, 08.00HOURS (local time) – At 1.32am on Saturday 30 July, a Caribbean Airlines aircraft (Boeing 737-800), operating as flight # BW523, en route from Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Georgetown, Guyana was involved in an incident upon landing at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Guyana.

Caribbean Airlines immediately activated its emergency response program and is in direct contact with the relevant authorities. The airline’s primary concern at this time is for those on board the aircraft and their families.

Emergency response teams at CJIA were activated at Airport and all passengers and crew have been evacuated. There were 157 passengers and six crew on-board. Up to press time, this is the update that we have:

--There have been no fatalities.

--Passengers are still receiving medical attention and we are working closely with the medical services in Guyana

The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority has closed the Cheddi Jagan Aerodrome until 10.00 hrs while an investigation is being conducted. Perimeter around aircraft has been secured and is being guarded by the Guyana Defence Force and Police Officials. ..."

Bio

Joe Sharkey's work appears in major national and international publications. For 19 years until 2015 he was a weekly columnist for the New York Times. He is now a weekly travel and entertainment columnist with the global website Travel.Buzz, as well as an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Arizona, He has written five books, four non-fiction and a novel, one of which is in development as a movie. Previously, he was an assistant national editor at the Wall Street Journal and a reporter and columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer.
On Sept. 29, 2006, he was one of seven people on a business jet who survived a mid-air collision with a 737 over the Amazon. All 154 on the 737 died. His report on the crash appeared on the front page of the New York Times and later in the Sunday Times of London magazine.
He and his wife Nancy (who is a professor of journalism at the University of Arizona) live in Tucson with horses and parrots. He is working on a new novel about an international travel writer who hates to travel.
"JoeSharkey.com" is Copyright (c) 2006-2015 by Joe Sharkey.